Sunday, April 30, 2006

"THE POKER GAME" GAME

We were sitting in my living room playing TiVO catch-up when Monte came in. It’s true that Cindy and I watch way too much television. I enjoy all of the detective shows, mostly to pick them apart, and I’ve hooked her too. But on weeks when I have a hot case all our favorites end up on the TiVO to be digested marathon-style on Saturday. Monte often joins us, and he’s developing quite the brain for mysteries.

While he was watching a fresh bag of popcorn in the microwave, Cindy and I also started a new game we came up with. It grew out of our ideas about out favorite shows crossing over, and seems to have taken on a life of its own. “Abby and Cloe and Garcia, of course,” I said, “but who else?” “And Marshall,” Cindy said, warming to the topic. “But we’re still short a player.” “What are you guys talking about?” Monte asked, plopping onto the giant pillow Cindy bought me. It sits in front of the sofa and serves as extra seating. Monte never sat on the couch when we were both there. “It’s a poker game,” Cindy explained, pausing the recorded showing of Alias. “People only play poker with people they have something in common with, and we’re deciding who would be playing together.” “Cindy thinks that Abby Sciuto on NCIS would invite Cloe O’Brien from 24 to a game to get her to loosen up a bit. Cloe’s wound a little too tight. They’re both kind of geeks, but the action starts could never find the bad guys, let alone beat them, without Abby and Cloe. So I figure they’d also invite Garcia from Criminal Minds since she’s the same kind of character. And I added Marshall Flinkman from Alias who is the backup geek on that show. But then we were stuck for a fifth player who fit in with that crowd.” Cindy hit play, and we started to get back into the show. Less than a minute later, after he scooped out a big handful of popcorn and handed me the bowl, Monte said, “Cloe.” “We said Cloe,” I reminded him. “No, not bitchy Cloe. Cutie Cloe. Cloe Sullivan from Smallville.” Cindy let the show roll right through a commercial and I leaned over to give Monte a high-five. “You hit it buddy, she’s the perfect fit with that group.” “He’s good at this,” Cindy said, popping a kernel into her mouth. She always eats popcorn one piece at a time.

“Maybe he can complete the killer girls table.” “Who you got?” Monte asked, leaning back against the sofa. “Well, we figure Sydney Bristoe – Alias again, gets invited to the regular poker game hosted by Emma Peale from the old Avengers show. At this point, Mrs. Peale is kind of a mother figure to her and some others.” “I threw in that Sydney would drop her baby off at the same child care place as The Bride.” Monte was blank for a second, but then lit up. “Oh, yeah, the girl from the Kill Bill movies.” “Right,” Cindy said. “And they’d meet up with La Femme Nikita at the game. Now there would be a lot of shop talk around that table, all about how to kill people who get in your way.” “So the question is, who is qualified to sit in the fifth chair at that poker game?” Well, we watched the rest of that episode of Alias and several more shows without coming up with an answer we were all happy with. So, Cindy decided that I should post all this on my blog and let whoever is bored enough to read this stuff offer an answer. We figure somebody as addicted to TV as we are will come up with a good fifth player. Any takers?

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Follow the Money

One of my duties as Cindy’s man is to take her to brunch with a bunch of other lawyers every so often. They’re mostly women and they like this place called the Banana Cafe that has a piano playing and all-you-can-eat Cuban and Puerto Rican food. My purpose, naturally, is to demonstrate to the girls that Cindy has a steady guy, and I don’t mind her using me as a piece of jewelry because you can bet I wear her as an accessory when I’m out with the guys and sometimes when I meet with clients.

The thing is, I don’t generally have much to add to the conversation. Last week, though, Cindy mentioned my Secret Service experience and one of the gals asked my views on dealing with terrorism. Now I usually work on much smaller problems, but I told them that I did learn one important thing in government service that I apply to my work as a private detective. The Secret Service belongs to the Treasury Department so I learned that to catch the bad guys, you follow the money. I think maybe that applies to terrorists too. I think Washington ought to be working hard to make sure the global financial system is secured against terrorist financing.

Terrorism is driven by two engines: hate and money. Hatred drove those planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on September 11. But it couldn’t have happened without the financial network that Osama bin Laden had set up. I don’t think we can stop the hatred, but if we do it right maybe we can stop the cash flow.

I think the U.S. and her allies have been trying hard to collect and analyze all the data available to track and disrupt the activities of terrorists. But financial intelligence is as hard to gather as it is valuable.

I think financial officials around the world are starting to recognize how important their role is in fighting terrorism. We can’t let people who finance terrorism feel that their money is safe. We need to chase them as hard as we chase the guys making bombs and pointing guns.

Organizations like al Qaeda have to raise, move and store lots of money in order to recruit, train and pay their fighters, support their families, buy fake documents and carry out attacks. When terrorists move money through the banking systems, they expose themselves. There are valuable clues hidden in the huge number of financial transactions that move through our financial system every day that might mean the difference between a successful investigation and a dead end. Things like an address that might link two conspirators. Following the money to identify terrorists and sympathizers is pretty much invisible to the public, but it can be a powerful tool in the fight against terrorist groups.

Did you know my old pals over at Treasury have an Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence? It’s there to both protect the financial system and disrupt the networks that support terrorists and other national security threats. Even though the Secret Service was created to fight counterfeiting, Treasury has never had a fully functional intelligence office before, and this one’s staffed by expert analysts focused on the financial networks of terrorists and other threats to our national security.

The detectives at Treasury work with the financial sector to identify illicit activity and exclude it from the channels of legitimate business. They go through all available financial information, from suspicious activity reports and subpoenas and other filings institutions make under the Bank Secrecy Act, to track and disrupt terrorist money flow. That’s how they’ve been able to shut down corrupt charities and expose terrorist financiers. And that has a deterrent effect on future potential donors to terrorist causes.
They also help other law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community by sharing financial data that can help them "connect the dots."

What’s missing in all this is, they need to cooperate better with foreign governments. I know the Canadians and Australians are also financial data to map and disrupt terrorist financing networks just like we are. Finance ministries in lots of countries are working the national, security front. Getting together would multiply our effectiveness. If we can stay aggressive in following the money, I think we can cut the terrorists off at the knees.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

A Lucky Man

Hello. My name is Cindy Santiago and Hannibal has been my man long enough to allow me to make an occasional entry into his web log. He says he doesn’t care about this blog at all, but I know that he is possessive about it, as he is about everything that reflects on him. Still, we lawyers have a way of persuading people to allow us to do those things we truly want to do.

I wanted to make an entry about last Sunday’s dinner, an entry I know Hannibal never would. I had prepared a simple meal of paella and invited Mother Washington and her grandson Monte to join us. After the blessing Hannibal followed a ritual I have observed. He tasted his food, thoroughly chewed and swallowed that first bite, and then said, “This is delicious, baby. Thank you.”

“Why you always got to do that?” Monte asked him. I suppose it was a teenage thing to ask. Mother Washington was about to land on the boy like a ton of bricks but Hannibal just held up his palm to still her.

“Never forget to be grateful, Monte,” Hannibal said. “You can’t ever earn all that you get.”

“That’s why you're saying thank you all the time? Cause it’s more than you deserve?”

Hannibal smiled. “I don’t ever want to lose sight of the fact that I’m a lucky man.”

That's what he said: "I'm a lucky man." But that's my Hannibal. Gratitude is a big thing with him. He'd hate my using this term but the fact is that he is very self aware. By that I mean that he is so aware of his flaws and weaknesses that I swear he feels as if he's gotten away with something whenever he receives the smallest blessing.

Monte is growing up in a world full of presumption, of people feeling that they are entitled to something. But for Hannibal, I think humility blocks all that out. He once told me that one of his greatest heroes was Lou Gehrig who, when cursed with a fatal disease, stood publicly to declare how lucky he was to have had the life and career he had.

I know that, in secret, Hannibal has sent notes to teachers who helped Monte succeed in school. And I've heard him tell Monte that he needed to go with his Grandmother to church, not to hear a sermon, but to give thanks. I really hope that Monte understands the lesson Hannibal is trying to teach him. A good man is always thankful.

Hannibal once told me that his father was raised in the South. He died in Vietnam when Hannibal was quite young, but he has said that one of his strongest memories of his dad was of his saying, "I'm beholden to you," when someone did him a favor, or saying, "Much obliged." I think that's why Hannibal says "Thank you" all the time.

It's old fashioned. But it's part of what makes you feel that Hannibal Jones will help you if a disaster strikes in your life.